Ohio State football: Buckeyes must solve Michigan State defense to win Big Ten title game

Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio, left, talks with Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer during a news conference for the Big Ten Conference championship NCAA college football game Friday, Dec. 6, 2013, in Indianapolis. Ohio State will play Michigan State, Saturday for the championship. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

As Ohio State’s offensive coordinator, Tom Herman is the man in charge of the Buckeyes’ high-octane offense.
When your group averages 531 yards and 48 points per game, it’s got to be fun, right?
Well, maybe not this week.
Ohio State will play for a Big Ten championship Saturday. The 12-0 Buckeyes have a BCS national championship invitation likely waiting for them if they win.
All that’s standing between Ohio State and the goal it has been chasing all season long is Michigan State.
Therein lies the un-fun part.
“It’s miserable,” Herman said of prepping for a showdown between the Buckeyes’ offense and Michigan State’s defense. “Have you watched that tape? They are really, really good.”
Michigan State (11-1) boasts a defense that is fourth in the nation in total defense (274 yards per game), fourth in the nation in scoring defense (11.8 points per game) and first in the nation in rushing defense (65 yards per game).
If Ohio State is going to win its 25th straight game and earn a spot in the BCS title game on Jan. 6, 2014, it is going to have to find a way to win that battle.
It’s a battle of the unstoppable force vs. the impenetrable wall.
“As fine a defense as there is in America,” OSU coach Urban Meyer said. “Very good players, excellent scheme, well-coached.”
The Spartans feature two of the Big Ten’s best, based on the all-league selections released earlier this week. Cornerback Darqueze Dennard was named the Tatum-Woodson Defensive Back of the Year, while teammate Shilique Calhoun was named the Smith-Brown Defensive Lineman of the Year.
In all, five of the Spartans’ 11 starting defenders were first-team All-Big Ten, including rugged linebacker Max Bullough and three of the four defensive backs.
“You know, it’s not real overcomplicated,” Meyer said of Michigan State’s defense. “That’s where I think they do an excellent job. They make everything look alike, and they are very well-coached as far as gap control and you don’t see many big plays against them. I don’t want to give you the number, because it’s probably wrong, but a very minimal amount of explosive plays against them.”
Explosive plays are Ohio State’s specialty. In a 42-41 win over Michigan last week, the Buckeyes ran for 393 yards and averaged 8.5 yards per carry. While Braxton Miller completed only 6 of 15 passes, the average completion was more than 20 yards per catch.
Ohio State’s forte is running the ball, with Carlos Hyde (1,290) already having hit the 1,000-yard plateau and Miller (891) on the doorstep.
But with Michigan State being so staunch against the run, does that mean Ohio State might look to pass more this week?
“Have you seen 34 and 5 run it?” Herman said of Hyde and Miller. “In the case of the game up in Ann Arbor, we were having success running the football, so it would have been probably against better judgment to stray away from that.”
Meyer has preached the importance of balance between run and the pass all season long. But Ohio State leans heavily on the run, with 3,855 yards on the ground next to 2,511 in the air.
Meyer said the deviation from his 50-50 wishes is a “little bit” of a concern, but granted that’s also a function of how well the Buckeyes have run the ball this season.
“I want the ‘W,’” Meyer said, meaning a win is more important than a run-pass mix.
Ohio State and Michigna State did not play this year in the regular season. But the teams are familiar with each other after the Buckeyes posted a 17-16 win over the Spartans last September in the Big Ten opener for both schools.
In that game, Ohio State ran for 179 yards, including 38 yards on the game’s final drive — six straight runs that allowed the Buckeyes to run out the clock and get a win Meyer has since called the turning point of the 2012 season.
“We’re a much better offense than we were a year ago,” Meyer said. “But that was a street fight last year and certainly (it was) between the tackles. We have to be ready for that.”
The well-being of Ohio State’s goals ride on this game. A Big Ten championship. A 25th straight win. And probably a berth in the national title game.
Solving the Spartans’ watertight defense would go a long way toward Ohio State reaching those goals.
“At the end of the day, there’s only a few reasons to live this crazy life that we do,” Herman said. “One of them is for the love and betterment of young men and trying to, again, turn boys into men.
“And then the other one, I say it all the time, bankers don’t get to do this. They don’t get to go compete in Indianapolis against the No. 1 defense possibly in America, come out hopefully on top and say, ‘My guys did that.’ That’s fun, it really is.”